By Dipo Olowookere
The continued absence of an OMO auction by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) left the yields on the one-month treasury bills going down by 0.14 percent on Tuesday to settle at 9.94 percent at the secondary market.
Business Post observed that the tenor was the only that depreciated yesterday as the other three maturities closed green.
Yields on the 3-month bill appreciated on Tuesday by 0.44 percent to finish at 10.61 percent, the 6-month instrument rose by 0.26 percent to end at 12.06 percent, while the 12-month tenor gained 0.43 percent to close at 13.24 percent.
Business Post reports that on the average, the yields increased yesterday by 0.25 percent to settle at 11.46 percent.
Yesterday, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, announced the decision of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to retain rates at 13.5 percent.
According to him, the reason for the decision was due to renewed inflationary pressures, concerns for forex stability and the need to monitor real sector developments.
However, the committee frowned on the ‘overinvestment’ of banking sector deposits in risk free government securities which have consequently crowded out the much needed credit to the private sector, and stated its intentions to check the unlimited access to government securities by DMBs.
Whilst the CBN has slowed down its spate of OMO issuances in recent sessions, analysts at Cowry Asset “await more clarity on how it actually intends to implement its aforementioned policy stance towards the DMBs.”
Meanwhile, rates in the money market remained relatively stable, as system liquidity improved to about N266 billion.
The Open Buy Back (OBB) and Overnight (OVN) rates consequently ended the session at 4.57 percent and 5.29 percent respectively.
“We expect rates to remain stable at these levels tomorrow, as there are no significant outflows anticipated,” Cowry Asset said.
